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language

He said to her, “you knowit really irritates me how youalways seem to repeat yourself.Say it once and that’s enough.”She paused, thought about his comment,then said, “You know, despitewhat you say, I don’t, I don’t really, but nuance is something that always seemsjust beyond your comprehension.”He bristled, “You could be more subtle, you know, perhapsit is always on the thin edgeof my comprehension, but getspushed way by the repetitive battering you feel the needto impart, over and over.”She smiled, “I doubt it,I truly and sincerely doubt it.”

He lived in a world of acronyms. He hated them. He knew they were ubiquitous and becoming more so. Modern discourse, some said, couldn’t happen without them, since modern discourse didn’t involve people speaking words, but devices interacting. Though how a PDA could be LMAO was beyond him. Still he knew all about FIFO and APR’s, not to mention his interactions with SSA about his SSI. But he knew, above all else, that the reliance on these instruments would always have one fatal flaw, and that was best summed up by the only acronym he thought remotely justified: GIGO, for that was what left everything FUBAR.

It is one thing to be short,quite another to be too short,just as it is one thing to be tall,another thing to be too tall.It is a separate thing determiningwhere the border of “too”should be drawn for any dimension.I am short, but I will never be too short, and never too tall.Some believe faith is a dimension,and you can be Jewish or too Jewish,Christian or too Christian, but Iam Buddhist which cannot be a faithfor you simply cannot be too Buddhist.

Once upon a timeis the oddest of expressions,for nothing is upon time,this one, or any other.And can we be certainwhat we think once wasis committed to a memory,which is falliblein the best of times.or more precisely, in thebest of time, for timecannot be plural, though itis inherently evanescentand is gone as we watch.

On the radio this morningthe DJ played the classic“In the Midnight Hour,” and Ipause to reflect on the factthat midnight is a momentand cannot be an hour,by definition, since the halfwayis only a point, not a range,and you cannot puta home on an hour, for timewaits for no man, and waitingis what a homeis all about, and around.